


come around again

by Sixthlight



Series: Slices of Life [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Post-Canon, Stargazing, Team as Family, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 06:06:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30135108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixthlight/pseuds/Sixthlight
Summary: “Remind me again why we’re here?” Nile asked.“Stargazing,” Andy said, slamming the truck door shut.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman
Series: Slices of Life [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2217837
Comments: 4
Kudos: 111





	come around again

“Remind me again why we’re here?” Nile asked as she pulled the last bag out of the falling-apart truck Andy had driven to the middle of nowhere (actually: northern Kazakhstan). A week ago, they’d been on a beach in Bali, decompressing after their last mission. Nile would have been totally happy to stay on the beach; on her own, even. After a year and a half, she could cope with being out of everybody else’s sight for a while.

“Stargazing,” Andy said, slamming the truck door shut.

“And we couldn’t have done that in Indonesia?”

“Not this stargazing,” Andy declared enigmatically, swiping the bag off Nile and striding into the house. She was always doing stuff like that, like it was going to hold off aging, like she needed to prove she wasn’t fragile. Immortal or not, Andy was the least fragile person Nile knew.

The safehouse had electricity, which was an exciting development, but no running water. That was about par for the course, Nile was finding. They didn’t actually stay in safehouses that often; mostly it was hotels and rentals, but sometimes the others got the itch to be away from modern civilization for a few days, and their various hideaways fitted the bill best. The hotel in Bali had been really nice. Nile was already missing it. Surely there were perfectly nice hotels in Kazakhstan.

It was August, and sunset was very late; they were further north than Nile had realised. She started yawning before ten, blinking and stretching to try and stay awake. She _was_ curious about whatever Andy wanted them here for.

“Go to bed,” Nicky told her. “I will be.”

“But Andy said stargazing.”

“Not until the early morning. Might as well get some rest now.”

Nile stifled another yawn. “Mmph. Okay.”

She was woken up by Joe’s hand on her shoulder, sometime after midnight and before dawn. She didn’t bother trying to wake up properly, just stumbled outside after him, wrapped in her blanket. She didn’t need it; the night was warm. The sky was achingly clear, individual stars scattered like spangles across it, the Milky Way like a river. The moon had set; there were only the stars. It had never looked like this in Chicago, or even Afghanistan. The lights on base had always drowned the stars out.

“This way,” Andy said, pointing. They were all sitting on the ground, near the truck. “Give it a minute or two, you’ll see.”

Nile waited, blinking sleep away. She thought the first meteor was a coincidence, or a satellite. Then they kept coming, one after the other, delicate points of light that soared and vanished, like a slow, slow heartbeat. She heard Joe murmur something to Nicky in one of their personal languages. Nicky gave a low, warm chuckle. Nile felt it through her side; they were all sitting close.

“You couldn’t see this from Bali,” Andy told her, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “Sometimes I like to come home to watch this one. It’s been coming around for a while.” In the starlight, she looked as young as Nile was.

“Well, okay then,” Nile said, and sat with her family to watch the stars fall one by one.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an anonymous prompt on Tumblr: "The fam watching stars together".


End file.
